


Silence and Motion

by Dangerousnotbroken



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 17:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2318234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangerousnotbroken/pseuds/Dangerousnotbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean can't bring himself to say the words, but he knows what he'd mean if he did.  The things he does are more important anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence and Motion

He never says the words. He knows he should, because they’re true. He knows there’s a part of Cas that wants to hear it out loud, needs to hear it. But he can’t make his lips shape the letters, can’t force his throat to make the sounds. So he shows it, in other ways, in ways that are honest and simple and real. He lets his actions speak where his words cannot.

It’s in the way his hands linger on Cas’s shoulders when they hug. He’s never been a big hugger, and he figures the hugs themselves say something, but he lingers anyway. With anyone else, hugs are a precious commodity. He reserves them for big times. For life or death times, and long goodbyes, and the first hello after he thinks he’s said goodbye forever. This life has had too many of the last kind for his liking. It’s beautiful, in those moments, to hug someone he thought he’d lost for good, someone he thought was never coming back, but he wishes he could have the reunion without the preceding period of mourning. But Cas, Cas gets special treatment. He wraps his arms around the trench-coat clad shoulders every time he shows up. There’s a rustle of wings and a shift in the air. Somewhere in his brain he knows its science; displacement of the gasses filling up the space and the presence of his angel taking their place. Matter cannot occupy the same space as other matter. Something must give. But his forebrain, the one that controls his limbs, the one that’s full up with thoughts of crystal blue eyes, that one thinks it’s just the oxygen leaving the room, because his breath catches in his throat and he feels like his lungs might give up the ghost.

He responds to the gruff voiced utterance of ‘Hello, Dean,” both visibly and invisible. He smiles in spite of himself, lets the sound of the voice warm him through and through.

            “Hey, Cas,’ he replies, and scoops the angel into a solid embrace with no hesitation. Castiel hugs back, awkwardly at first, because it’s a human thing, this touching, and he’s still learning how to do this. He warms with time. Each hug is a little less stiff, a little less awkward, a little more human. Each hug is a little more personal, until Dean’s not hugging Cas, Cas is hugging Dean, Cas is initiating it, Cas is turning and stepping in to his arms as soon as his feet settle wherever he’s flown to, because he knows it’s coming. It’s a standard greeting now. Dean doesn’t know if Cas recognizes that this is special, that it’s for him alone, but Dean knows it, and that means something.

It’s in the easy silences as much as it’s in the words. It’s in the comfortable silences, the way he can sit without speaking for hours on end without feeling the need to shake the air with sound. Other silences are hard. Silences are full of unfulfilled potential, with bridges un-mended and pain he can’t bring himself to acknowledge. Silences with Cas are easier. They’re a balm for all of the wounds he pretends aren’t there anymore. They’re the first deep, cleansing breath after he thinks he’s going to drown, and Cas’s presence is the thing that lets his face break the stormy surface. His life is an ocean of grief; it’s a constant battle to stay afloat, when he’s buffeted from all sides and his allies are so few. So many of those allies, those friends, are gone now. Kevin. Bobby. Jo. Ellen. Even John, though that was the most strained of all. God, does he miss them. Cas was gone before, too. He tries not to think about that, mostly. Tries not to think about Cas, destroyed by Lucifer in that graveyard. Cas, decaying under the weight of the Leviathan. Cas, melting into the lake. Cas, in Purgatory, letting go and shoving him toward Salvation. Cas, gone.

The silences are easy, because it means that Cas is there, and for the moment, things are not falling apart. Five minutes down the road, they might; another apocalypse, another demon, another monstrosity. But silence means not yet. So he lets the silence live, and it restores him. Cas seems to like the silence too. He’s calm, peaceful even, in these moments. When it’s just the two of them in the Impala, he sits in the front seat and doesn’t protest when Dean turns the radio off. Cas doesn’t need the car, doesn’t need Dean to drive him anywhere, he knows. Cas could just as easily go accomplish something else, meet back up with Dean later when it’s relevant. But he doesn’t, and Dean welcomes every minute. The silence is golden, and he doesn’t protest it. Cas’s hands rest on his knees, the sleeves of that same old coat brushing against his pants and making a soft sound, the only sound other than the engine. He’s motionless in the quiet. His eyes are closed and his features are soft and if Dean didn’t know better he could believe the Angel was sleeping. He doesn’t sleep, though. He doesn’t do most of the things humans do. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t breathe except to speak, he doesn’t feel things the same way. Dean wonders what it’s like, not to feel the pull of need. Would he eat, just for the memory of food, if it wasn’t a requirement for life? Cas smiles slightly, the edges of his mouth tucking upwards just a little at some joke he doesn’t share, and Dean smiles too. There’s so little good in his life. Let him have this one thing to smile about.

It’s in the smiles, too. He’s so much less guarded than he used to be; at least, with Sam and Cas he is. Confidence is a great shield, he knows from experience. If you hold yourself tall and strong, if you smile like you’re unfazed but it all, they think you really are. Then it doesn’t matter how broken you are because you’re the only one who knows about it. He’s so much less guarded now, so when it hurts, it shows, and when he’s broken, the cracks are visible, and when it’s too much, he buckles. But it also means that when he smiles it’s not a mask anymore. It means something again. He smiles when he sees Cas, in those brief moments before the hugs that also mean things. He smiles when Cas is suddenly in the back of the Impala as they cross state lines in the middle of the night, when Sam is sleeping against the window and the radio is low and the mile markers all seem to blur into one constant stream of numbers. He smiles because if Cas is there, something awful isn’t happening elsewhere. He smiles because Cas didn’t show up to ask for something or to share bad news or for anything ‘work related.’ He smiles because Cas wanted to be here and that’s something to smile about.

It’s in the way he sleeps, although he’s not really aware of it himself, nor is he aware that Castiel does notice. Sleep has never been a luxury. He’s never had the chance to sleep in, not really. He jokes about getting his four hours a night, but hunting has always necessitated sleeping when you can, or when you have to, not when you want to or need to. He used to joke about drinking just so he could sleep. He wasn’t really joking. He’s seen too many horrors to close his eyes without something to take the edge off. There’s too much fodder for nightmares to go into the breech without something to buffer his mind from the memories. Castiel watches him sleep from time to time, and when he can’t resist the curiosity any longer, sometimes he watches his dreams. They’re softer than they used to be, less cruel, less horrible. They’re more like the abstract weirdness a normal person might dream. There’s more of them, too, because he sleeps longer and deeper, because the nightmares aren’t waking him up and because he’s not drinking himself to sleep and because he’s got something good to cling to as he lays his head on the motel room pillow each night.

It’s in his patience, his acceptance. Castiel’s mannerisms have become more human, he knows, but he’s still so different. There’s so much he doesn’t get, doesn’t know and there’s no way to teach him all of it before it becomes relevant. There’s so many things he does or says, or doesn’t do or doesn’t say, that just don’t fit. Dean takes it in stride though, because he’s trying. Because it’s endearing. He doesn’t grumble when Cas invades his personal space for the thousandth time, although he also doesn’t tell Cas how much he likes having his personal space invaded like that. He doesn’t yell when Cas pops in to the room while he’s changing. Somewhere distant, he’s aware that Cas should know by now that it’s a bit weird, and he’s sure the Angel has ways of knowing what he’s jumping in to. It’s not worth yelling about though, is it? He doesn’t shake his head when Cas doesn’t get a reference anymore. He doesn’t laugh when Cas makes an accidental double entendre. He doesn’t mock the confusion Cas shows at idioms or begrudge the blank look on Cas’s face when he tries to explain them. Cas cocks his head to the side and squints at him and he just gives up and smiles one of those smiles that he really means, because if he has time to tell Cas what it means to let the cat out of the bag then it means nothing’s on fire yet.

It’s in so many little things. He orders Castiel a coffee when they sit at a diner just outside Tulsa, because he knows that Cas likes the taste of it, the warmth in his hands. It makes him feel grounded. He lets Cas pick the music, once, when they’re driving through the desert in the dead of night, because he’s so happy for the company and Cas shows a genuine interest in pawing through the box of cassettes. He never lets Sammy pick the music, but Sammy will take a mile if you give him an inch. Cas is just grateful for the experience, and it’s adorable. He’ll never use that word out loud, not without a derisive laugh, but it is. Cas doesn’t know what any of the tapes are, of course, but he rifles through the shoebox until he finds something he thinks he recognizes and they drive down the highway with AC/DC blaring through the speakers. Dean sings along and drums on the steering wheel and Cas bobs his head to the tune and it’s wonderful because he’s happy and Cas is happy (he thinks). It doesn’t matter that they’re chasing down a ghost, or that tomorrow might bring another apocalypse or that Sam will never let him hear the end of it if he finds out that Cas got to pick the music. None of it matters. It’s in the way he breathes a little easier when Cas is around, the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs, because he’s laughing like he means it again. It’s the bounce in his step and the beer he drinks because he likes it instead of because he’s drowning his suffering. It’s in all the little things that show he’s coming back into the world, in a way he didn’t know he was absent until the greys faded and the colour came back. It’s in so many tiny things that he doesn’t even truly know how long it’s been building. The bricks are so small it’s a skyscraper (the Chrysler Building, he thinks, when he makes the metaphor in his head), a skyscraper before he knows he’s even laid the foundation, and by then it’s too late, too late, it’s already done.

It’s there when Cas lets his eyes linger, when he stares for just a heartbeat and a half too long, and Dean doesn’t look away. It’s there when, for reasons he can’t identify afterwards, he feels himself moving towards Castiel and it’s there when he doesn’t try to stop his feet from closing the distance. It’s there when his hand cups Cas’s chin, the eternal stubble rough against his palm and the warmth of Cas’s skin a steady comfort. It’s happening too fast for Dean to analyze, and it’s over before he knows what he’s done. He can feel the memory of Cas’s lips on his, an electric tingle, and he wonders how he ever lived without knowing what it was. His hand is still on Cas’s cheek, his green eyes locked on Castiel’s blues, and he feels like he should say something but he doesn’t know what. The smell of Cas invades his nose, honey and cinnamon and fresh cut grass, and he opens his mouth to speak, but there’s no words, just silence and the motion of his lips. He shuts them, shuts his eyes.

            “I know, Dean.” Comes the reply, and when he opens his eyes again, Cas is smiling at him, smiling like he means it. Dean doesn’t understand, because he doesn’t know himself what it is he was going to say, barely comprehends the thoughts that drove him to touch, and to kiss, and to dream. It’s on his face, and in his eyes, it’s in the half words and partial syllables his mouth lets him offer as explanation. “It’s in everything you do,” Cas says, and Dean doesn’t know whether he’s talking about the kiss, or the words he can’t say, or something else. Then Cas is kissing him again, and this time it’s not over before he knows it. It’s all there in the deep, lingering kiss. It’s in the way he leans in to Dean’s arms, in the way he smiles, even as his lips are busy doing other things. Its in the way he’s always shown up when Dean needs him, whether it be for help saving the world, or for company when Sam’s on another hunt and Dean has nothing but the open road for company. It’s in the silences, as comfortable for him as they are for Dean, and as necessary. It’s in the way he watches Dean sleep, because as far as he’s come, Dean is still a broken man and Cas knows that sometimes the nightmares will still torment him. He watches, because he can’t bear the thought of Dean suffering through the scars his life has left, and waking up alone in the dark. It’s in the way he puts himself in Dean’s space, time and time again, in the way he keeps trying to learn the referential humour and the television and the movies and the media. It’s in all the things he does because he knows what they mean to Dean. Every single ounce of it pours through in the kiss. There’s no words for it, but there doesn’t need to be. Cas knows, because he sees all the little things, the tiny things. The things that add up to so much greater than the sum of their parts. It’s there in every moment, in the silence between them, in all the unintentional motions, in the smiles and the laughter and the touches. Its love, built brick by brick when no one was looking.


End file.
